Will and Helen's Return- Shattered Hearts
by Katidid92
Summary: The night before her birthday, Will and Helen find themselves back in The Night Dimension. Believing they've lost their Ideya again wasn't as bad as why they were really there. A reawakened Wizeman has planned a far worse form of revenge. He shatters Helen's heart, causing her to lose all of her emotions! Will, NiGHTS, and a reformed Reala must gather her heart shards or she'll die


Hey, NiGHTS fanbase. It's been a while since I was here with you. Due to being burnt out from the Separation Anxiety series, I took a long hiatus from anything NiGHTS related. But I'm back now.

And if you're wondering why I'm writing a new story rather than continuing SA, I'll tell you why right now. I don't feel pleased with how the story was going and I felt that people were getting a little over obsessed with it.

But don't worry, I'll comeback to it in the future!

And just so you know, this is the first volume of a prequel to the series. Just to clarify, this is in A.T. Moonlight's timeline.

I hope you enjoy it!

01 Was That Even Real?

"Well, let's get through this..." William Taylor, also known simply as Will, walked through a store in his home of Bellbridge, a district of London. He wasn't exactly comfortable and visualized he was receiving constant stares of wonder and humiliation, directed solely at him.

(A.N. To try to make locations correspond to the real world, I decided to make Bellbridge part of London, in the UK. As for why I chose London, I felt it was easier that the clock tower in NiGHTS Journey of Dreams to actually be The Elizabeth tower, AKA Big Ben. Naturally, this changes what London actually looks like. Just try to picture a fusion of Bellbridge and London.

And on this note, I don't actually have nearly a great deal of knowledge about London's structure. I'm from the United States and never actually took a world geography course when I was in High School. Most of my classes were self contained and resource classes, apart from electives. If I've created inconsistencies other than fusing Bellbridge and London, forgive me.

Hmm, maybe I should go to London someday. I've personally wanted to visit Ireland for most of my life. If I ever get a chance, maybe I'll visit them both. That's too far away in the future for it to have any effect on this story though. When I start college, though I have no idea when that will be either, I'll definitely take a world geography course or two.)

As for why he feared he was receiving such nerve wracking gazes, it was the fact he, a boy, was walking through a boutique, filled with cute clothes, stylish accessories, and other feminine products. It wasn't normal for a boy of thirteen years to enter such a girly store.

He hoped with all his heart that the women and girls browsing the shelves weren't getting the wrong idea.

Oh no! did he spot a girl from his school? He forced himself not to look up and identify her in fear she might have done the same thing to him. He fantasized that his classmates would never let him live it down.

"Can I help you, young man?" Will looked up nervously, his face was by far redder than a cherry. It had gradually turned that shade since he stepped through the front doors.

Will strongly resisted the urge to tremble in fear.

The store clerk was smiling at him as she seemed to be asking whether he'd simply gotten lost and wandered into the first store he saw, or what he feared more. He was frightened she thought he was lost in a far different way than she was actually thinking.

"I-I... I!" his voice cracked. That was the first time it had ever done so. Why had his voice chosen that time of all times to reveal he was growing up!? It had happened in the just the worst place at just the worst time.

"I'm fine!" he choked out. He finally looked into the confused clerk's eyes. His face became even redder than it had been a moment before. His mouth dropped open and formed terrified smile.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Will turned around and bolted out of the store as if he was Nikki Parlouzer turned into Sonic the Hedgehog,

(A.N. Even though a good deal of NiGHTS fans are Sonic fans, I should probably elaborate on this analogy. This isn't very common information to the fanbase outside Japan.

In 1992, there was a Sonic the Hedgehog manga about a Hedgehog named Nikki Parlouzer, whose alter ego was literally Sonic the Hedgehog. The manga chapters were never released outside Japan so very few people in the West know it actually exists.

Though hard to find, English fan translations can be found online and an interesting fact about this manga is that it was the first place Amy Rose was introduced, long before Sonic CD.)

_'I have the Ideya of Courage and I can't even buy a gift for a girl!'_ Will mentally scolded himself as he ran down the street.

…

"A gift for Helen..." he said to himself that night as he laid lazily on his bed. He wasn't quite prepared to go to sleep. He didn't live with his mother and his father was out of town until the next day for work. In other words, there was no one to tell him to go to sleep.

Besides that, he was thirteen by then. He felt that just aging by one year entitled him to make more of his own choices.

Hitting his teenage years was beginning to effect how he felt about certain subjects, how he slept, ext. Biologically speaking, teenager's and young adult's natural body clocks tended to keep them up later at night and sleep in far longer in the morning. This wasn't common knowledge so most parents considered those sleeping times as simply entering a rebellious stage.

Back to the story, Will's mind drifted towards an unrelated topic. It was about something that had happened almost a year earlier, if it had truly happened at all to begin with of course.

"Was that... even... real?" he questions to no one but himself. "NiGHTS" he whispers that name. It was the name of the one who had sacrificed her life for both himself and Helen. Unless it had all been a figment of his imagination, he was sure that he'd truly experienced that phenomenon in his dreams.

"It wasn't just a dream. After all, Helen was there. I'd never met her in real life before then. I couldn't have dreamed of someone I'd never met."

After that incident, Will had done research online and in books. He studied about the subject known as a premonition. Even if the dream itself wasn't reality, for all he knew, he might have had a second sight experience that night.

His grandmother from Scotland had spoken of things along those lines when he was young. She often talked about myths such as selkies, the banshee, and all sorts of Celtic lore.

Though not part of Celtic mythology, she spoke of members of their family possessing the second sight. Will thought she was simply joking at the time, and for the most part, he still believed she was simply teasing him. He was certain the tales she spun had nothing to do with Helen's appearance in his dreams.

His evidence to this fact was that Helen had dreamed the same thing at the same time. The second sight didn't work in that manner.

This was also his evidence that NiGHTS truly did exist. If he alone had dreamed about such a thing, he could have passed it off as nothing more than that. Even so, how could someone possibly interact with someone else in two separate consciousness? That was the proof Will stood by.

And when it came to Helen's point of view, she had drawn a sketchbook of the things they had witnessed. Every picture was spot on as he remembered it himself. There were pictures of things she'd seen that he hadn't, but they weren't together at all times in that other world.

Will looked through his window at the distant clock tower. He felt a longing every time he spotted that distant building.

In truth, it reminded him of NiGHTS and how she was gone. He missed his Nightmaren friend. He missed her more than almost anything in the world.

He wished that there was some way she would return and help him with his new insecurities. At the same time, even if she was alive, Will felt far too guilty about pushing his problems onto her.

Will had grown stronger as he collected his Ideya. He was sure that what he learned in Nightopia would guide him for the rest of his life. He wasn't perfect, but he'd become a better person. Even with his insecurities, he was satisfied that he was himself and no one else.

As he continued to gaze out into the sky, he noted dark clouds would soon cover the moon. It was a bit late in the year for rain, but it wasn't impossible. Heck, if it were just a little colder, it couldn't even snow.

And yet...

...Will felt uneasy. Storms had never bothered him before then. His instincts told him that something was very wrong. He tried as he must to deny it, but he couldn't get rid of his sense of dread.

"Oh man... It's midnight..." He glanced at his clock out of habit. "Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow. Everything is probably fine."

…

Will laid in his bed with his eyes shut, but he was far from asleep. That sinking feeling in his gut was preventing him from getting a healthy slumber. He felt as though if he slept, something horrible would happen.

Even so, Will was a human being. Humans required sleep so he knew he needed to crash at some point. There was that and what he feared would happen if he didn't rest his brain for a long Autumn's nap.

If he showed up at Helen's birthday party the next day, half asleep and with dark circles under his eyes, it wouldn't be pleasing. It would embarrass both himself and her.

Seeing as she was upper class, which he didn't have an entirely realistic grasp on, her friends probably had high expectations. They would shun Helen if they thought she hung out with the middle class boy who looked like he hadn't slept in twenty years. They would look down on both of them, he was certain.

Even though so much time had passed since they met one another that snowy night, he'd never actually met her friends. He'd had trouble making friends at all up until recent times. He was socially awkward. He felt even more awkward about meeting people who knew a girl that he cared more about than he had enough courage to say.

Will's felt that his relationship with Helen was very special. Their connection seemed different than anything he ever felt. He was just a kid and knew nothing about love, or even simple crushes, but he felt like Helen was something more than just a friend, even more so than a best friend. He felt nervous around her. He had a self-conscious need to impress her and be near her. He got more worried than he should normally have if she had a simple cold. Nothing cheered him up more than her sweet smile and her bubbly laughs.

He was sure he had feelings for her. That was why he had to do his best for her and her alone. He would do all he could, just so she could be by his side as long as he could hope for.

Although he knew how he felt, he wasn't sure that Helen saw him in the same manner of thoughts. His fear of rejection prevented him from trying to even tell her how he saw her.

On that night he felt so much fear, that he decided at last what he should do about his problems. He felt like something could happen at anytime and he had to act on his feelings as fast as he could possibly think on.

"Tomorrow, I'm going to confess my feelings. I'll tell Helen I like her." He'd found his resolve amidst the sense something was wrong. Will thought that if he didn't act quickly something would tear her away from him. So he had to do anything he could just so he could keep seeing that smile that warmed his heart.

He then remembered something else that was quite important. "I have to go back to that store tomorrow before the party... She's really girly so I need to get her something that fits her personality. I doubt I could find something like that anywhere else."

His face reddened once more as he turned over, sinking his face into his pillow. "What will people think if I go in that boutique a second time...?" he yawned.

He still felt that something was wrong, but he was too tired to fully care. There was nothing he could do about it at that moment in particular. If he slept, he could think more clearly and be ready for anything that happened the next morning.

Who knew? Maybe it truly was all in his head. Perhaps it was just anxiety about what he would be spending the next day doing.

Somehow he felt that wasn't the truth, but he pushed himself into believing that was all it was.

Little did he know, it was something more than that, far more than that, and more threatening than anything he'd ever faced in his life.

And it all happened, the moment he fell into his long delayed slumber...

Chapter End


End file.
